


Shackled and Scarred.

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Bittersweet, Ficlet, M/M, outsider pov, secondo, thought piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chiyoh observes and considers. Or, this all stemmed from the thought of what it must have been like getting between Hannibal and his prey.</p>
<p>"It is a wonder, her lips curve in a brief smile, a slow release of air, that she was shackled but not scarred in this place. In her mind, in the haunting moments before sleep, where reality is tenuous and the wind blows through the cracks in the stone, she remembers the violence in the gaze that night so long ago, the ravenous creature threading through the petulant child, the determination of fury and the ever present curl of curiosity, monster and man, man and monster."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shackled and Scarred.

She traces the line of the scar in her mind, her gaze on him as he moves down the steps in a blind determination. Foreign, but familiar. The dirge of violence staining his skin red in the moonlight, and hers now too. After all this time.

It is a wonder, her lips curve in a brief smile, a slow release of air, that she was shackled but not scarred in this place. In her mind, in the haunting moments before sleep, where reality is tenuous and the wind blows through the cracks in the stone, she remembers the violence in the gaze that night so long ago, the ravenous creature threading through the petulant child, the determination of fury and the ever present curl of curiosity, monster and man, man and monster. In that breath, she knew for the first time what she had always known, what she knows now. That between the two, there lie no boundaries. The broken boy without a sister who came in silence to their halls, the curious demon whom she’d followed helplessly to this hell, always together, an impossible blend of aberration. She thought she could spare him, save him, when she’d joined him on this quest, or so she told herself, promises herself still, the bloodlust suffocating her senses even as it drew her close. She had loved him, the unbearable truth. In whatever fashion he could be loved. Foolishly considered, she has learned in her years of solitude, she learns now, in the raised edges of twisted skin, that she might stop him, that she could be enough to have done so.  And when the crackling gaze fell on her, the realization of a certain knowledge, of her death at his hands, two deaths that evening as she stood between him and his prey, twice the blood to seep into the soil and mix with the scarlet already staining the grass, she loved him still. But a calm had come into the air even as the knife raised eager, ready to sink into skin, then calculation, the gears springing to life. 

_So keep him._

A careless turn of phrase and then a slow turn of back. As though he had not been blazing with terrible light only moments before, elated with the thrill of witnessing the final beats of a heart that had wronged him. 

_Punish him as you will._

And she had spared a man that night. But not the one she had hoped to. Not the many more to follow. Not even the one, in the end. Not even herself.  She had loved him and he had left.

She thinks only hate remains, now.

Perhaps that is why she was not enough.   

_"I will help you find him."_

She tells the shadow, the him who is not him, who loves him still. For a settling of scores, the words cross silently across her mind as her gaze darkens, For what is due to them both. That is why.

But even still, perhaps. As she goes with him, to move them together. Perhaps, even still.

She tries to save him. 


End file.
